u take the plainest you
can serve yourself with--that you waste or wear nothing vainly--and
that you employ no man in furnishing you with any useless luxury."

130. That is the first lesson of Christian--or human--economy; and
depend upon it, my friend, it is a sound one, and has every voice and
vote of the spirits of Heaven and earth to back it, whatever views the
Manchester men, or any other manner of men, may take respecting
"demand and supply." Demand what you deserve, and you shall be
supplied with it, for your good. Demand what you do _not_ deserve, and
you shall be supplied with something which you have not demanded, and
which Nature perceives that you deserve, quite to the contrary of your
good. That is the law of your existence, and if you do not make it the
law of your resolved acts, so much, precisely, the worse for you and
all connected with you.

131. Yet observe, though it is out of its proper place said here, this
law forbids no luxury which men are not degraded in providing. You may
have Paul Veronese to paint your ceiling, if you like, or Benvenuto
Cellini to make cups for you. But you must not employ a hundred divers
to find beads to stitch over your sleeve. (Did you see the account of
the sales of the Esterhazy jewels the other day?)

And the degree in which you recognize the difference between these two
kinds of services, is precisely what makes the difference between your
being a civilized person or a barbarian. If you keep slaves to furnish
forth your dress--to glut your stomach--sustain your indolence--or
deck your pride, you are a barbarian. If you keep servants, properly
cared for, to furnish you with what you verily want, and no more than
that--you are a "civil" person--a person capable of the qualities of
citizenship.[A]

[A] Compare 'The Crown of Wild Olive,' Sec.Sec. 79, 118, and 122.

132. Now, farther, observe that in a truly civilized and disciplined
state, no man would be allowed to meddle with any material who did not
know how to make the best of it. In other words, the arts of working
in wood, clay, stone, and metal, would all be _fine_ arts (working in
iron for machinery becoming an entirely distinct business). There
would be no joiner's work, no smith's, no pottery nor stone-cutting,
so debased in character as to be entirely unconnected with the finer
branches of the same art; and to at least one of these finer branches
(generally in metal-work) every painter and sculptor wo